Tag Archives: failure

Living in Neutral

I live in a neutral world. My environment is almost entirely neutral. Without interaction, I have no measure in reality. There is no validation, or critical-help. There is just neutral.

Things I perceive as neutral, are a potential threat. Starting with no particular feeling one way or the other, the thought of doing anything is met as a potential threat. Things could get worse. I could fail. And I am my only judge, so I perceive the danger of failing to be greater than the potential reward. Sometimes it fades away, and I can do things again. Sometimes I can never get past the potential for failure – which is a threat.

Quite the conundrum.

Gradually, anything I might want to do will fade away. My brain will gradually cut all ties… another project unfinished. And hobby left sitting. And just one more book left unwritten. It does not really matter. A thousand years from now, very few people alive will be able to name anyone from our era. So what does it matter?

I get along fine.

The only thing that changes, is the date.

I Failed Thanksgiving

I suppose I really did not really fail.  But I can’t help feeling like I did.  I was unable to attend.  In my own home.  Actually I was there for a while.  But when my anxiety shot up, it was all over.

The sad part is that I am the Turkey Roaster.  I do it every year.  And it really is good.  But we had an unusually large turkey, and when I figured how long it would take in the over, it was too long.  So I changed my cooking plan . The right temperature, at the right time.

Anyway… so I missed out of my own Thanksgiving dinner.

It got worse after everyone left.  I am not sure why, but I think some of my barriers dropped down even more.  I started feeling more.  And it wasn’t fun.

My ability to keep going, and deal with the anxiety ran out.  Sound familiar?

Thanks to help from Lori, I have got much better at not thinking it is a failure.  I did the best I could.  It still doesn’t work totally, but my recovery a lot better than it used to be.  Work on one thing at a time.  And think small.  Anxiety often starts with the smallest thing… so start with how you react to that one thing.

That is an approach my last psychologist and I worked up for me.  One little thing at a time… and the smaller the better actually.  As I gain confidence, I have come to learn that this “failure” was just part of how I have to interact with the world.  So it does not feel as bad.

I still have limits… kinda low ones too.  But I try.

I cannot push myself like I used to.  It’s ok.  Perhaps I simply don’t want to.  Either way, my life has become easier emotionally.  I have come to accept where I am.  At least for now.  None of this means I plan to, or expect to stay here.  But before I can go somewhere, I have to know where I am.  And it helps if I can be at least satisfied with where I am.

Notice: I did not say ‘my limitations’. So I am learning what to expect of myself.

A Very Weak Week

The last few days have been very trying.  It sort of started when I missed the Super Bowl, and things went downhill from there.  Everything I try to do to meet people, or go out, or be in contact with people, has blown up in my face.  The only things I can do, are alone.

What I am seeing is more isolation ahead.  I can at least go to a nice secluded place to get away… but as far as people are concerned, my life has gone even farther from having any friends.  I just need to stay home.  No-one will ever be better off for knowing me.

I am working on getting my office all finished up – I have made very good progress.  I can be comfortable here, by myself.  I have my hobbies.  But at the same time, I know I will have to make this pretty much my entire world.  There is nothing else.

My mind has been degraded.  I simply do not care as much anymore.  There is not so much to care about.  And it is clear, I can not think the way everyone else does.  I can not make a life with other people in it.  The only thing that works for me, is to be alone.

Just ask anyone… I am crazy.  I am weird, and unpredictable.  I am not a good friend.  I am best forgotten.

Three Blogs in one day?  I will try to slow down.  Smile

My Biggest Problem Right Now

I am totally inadequate. 

Lori does everything better than I do… she works harder, and gets more done that I can on my best days.  No matter how hard I try, I end up letting her down.  And it shows.  I can tell it bothers her.  I can tell it bothers everyone I interact with.

I cancel things I have planned because I can not trust myself to follow thru.  I am tired of feeling like a failure all the time.  This has been my life story – I have always been encouraged to feel like a failure.  Even though it is currently unintentional, it is very real.

It is relentless.

Always the Failure – Please Point it Out Again

I fail.  But then I almost always do.  Good thing there is someone to point out my failures to me.  Otherwise I might actually start feeling better about myself.

I know I have a horrible time getting things done.  With my mental issues, and back and knee pain pretty much all the time… but I try to feel good about what I do. 

I can not carry heavy things with my left hand – my fingers and thumb have joint injuries.  My toes have joint issues too, making it difficult to keep my balance at times.  But I still try to move around and I do what I can.  It is never enough.

I can not get things done.  I know that.  I try to work around it.  Of course I am writing about my own wants as well.  I have been trying to get my office set up for a year.  It’s pretty close, but there has been little progress recently.  I try to do house work first, then if I still can, I tinker in my office.

Depression and anxiety are the biggest hurdles I face.  Yesterday I was out of bed about 5 hours the whole day.  I did not eat.  Right now I am getting ready to go take a nap.  Not because I am tired, but because I am depressed, and I feel like life is worthless, and pointless.  It is just the same thing over and over.  Nothing ever gets better.

I know this is all my fault.  There is something wrong with me.  I have no more control over it than when the Sun will come up.  But I still have to be responsible, and acknowledge my failure.

Funny word “fault”.  My father used to tell me that assessing fault is a fool’s game.  There is no way to ever know for sure who’s fault things are.

Shopping Error Makes Me Feel Terrible

I ordered something from one of my favorite on-line places, and it arrived today.  It will not work for what I was planning.  And now I feel terrible… as if I am a huge failure for making this mistake.  I know I should not feel this way, but I can’t help it.  I feel empty.

I will be able to use them for something… and they are not worth the time and effort to send back.  So I will set them aside, and figure it out later.

But I am still feeling terrible about it.  It has dragged me down into a pit.  It’s been a bad day anyway – I am having a lot of back pain, and my toes are hurting whenever I try to walk.  Those things are probably affecting how I am feeling… but this has happened many times before, and I always feel so bad.

This is one reason it’s so hard to make decisions sometimes.  I know how I will feel if I make a mistake.  There has never been room in my life to make mistakes.  Even small things like this – a $12 item – make me crash into myself.

I will feel better later.  But it will take a while… I will be alright in a couple of hours.  Even so, this kind of thing should not be happening at all.  Atychiphobia – the fear of failure.  It drives me sometimes to take months to decide little things.  And when I don’t take a long time to research, and think thru all the options, I am taken down by mistakes.

Sometimes it drives Lori crazy that I just won’t decide!  I have to be way too careful.  I think I am better… but right now I just don’t know.  Being in the pit makes everything seem so much more hopeless.  How can I ever get better?

Can I get better?

My Evening Low

Almost every day, I have a late afternoon low… sometimes I crash out completely.  But usually I can get thru it.  It comes at that time when I realize I have not got as much done as I should have, and that time is running short on getting more done.

It does not mean I will jump up and get at things.  Usually it means I will have to work very hard to just remain up, and be active at all.  The best thing to do is to try to ride it out.

Most days I feel like I have failed… like I did not do well enough.  It’s a struggle to keep going, and I have been struggling all day with each little thing I have done.  I have overthought each item, and stalled because of it.  I stop and restart… and stop again.

It just ends up leaving me feeling worse as the evening goes on.  Including this evening.  I am having a difficult time right now.  I don’t know if I should go to bed, or cry, or what.  Maybe I will just “what”.

It’s hard to describe… thoughts swirl thru my brain faster than I can keep track of.  I can’t keep up, and anything positive I think of, is lost.  Though the negative aspects hang on.  They are always there.

Swirling thoughts, and surging emotions swamp out all reason, and it takes hours to recover… if I do.